Being missional involves doing and being church inside the walls and equally so outside the church walls.  In the church culture doing church at the church building in established church programs and schedules worked well and attracted new members and guests.  Today, we are no longer living in a church culture.  We are much more in line with the pluralistic, diverse and even hostile culture, in which the New Testament church was founded.  Because of the shift of our culture and the persistent mandate of the Great Commission we have no choice but to learn to BE church and DO church beyond the walls of our buildings and beyond the comfort zones of our traditions and rituals. This is certainly in line with the New Testament view of church also – the ‘gathered church’ (ekklesia) and the ‘scattered church’ (diaspora).  I discuss this in more practical detail in my book The Gathered and Scattered Church www.transformingsolutions.org.  That is not to say we, church culture members, need to give up our sacred and proven rituals and traditions that work for us, but it is to say, to be faithful to the Great Commission, we must create new entry points for the unchurched. Create those Go Structures along side of Come Structures.  It is not either/or it is now both/and. What’s that look like?

Intentionality is Key
   
Intentionality is key in this balancing act.  The leadership teams of the church must look at each budget item, program, ministry, team, committee agenda and plan and ask the following questions:

• How much of our energy, time, personnel, budget and programming are for the ‘gathered church membership’ and what percentage of these same items are intentionally targeting the ‘scattered church’ we are called to reach?
• What can we do to at least be equal in our percentages?
• What needs to happen to spend more on reaching ‘them’ than just caring for ‘us’?  This is because there’s certainly more persons to be reached than are in our membership.
• How many events, programs are targeting ‘us’ rather than ‘them?
• What will help us be more intentional about this?
  

What’s It Look Like?

While this makes great sense biblically, many have trouble with the practicality of being both churches. 
Here are some links to deacon ministries and churches that are intentional about being both churches and in many cases deacons are leading the way:
    Wieuca Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA - http://www.wieuca.org/deacon
    Forest Hill Baptist, Raleigh, NC - http://foresthills.org
Mission Baptist Church, Locust, NC - http://missionchurch.org/get_connected/small_groups/small_groups.htm
First Baptist Nashville, TN - http://equippinguanytime.blogspot.com/2008/01/outreach-whats-working.html
The Office and Function of Deacons – A sermon outline
http://pastorpaul.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-office-of-deacon-part-2-1st-timothy-39-10/

 The essence of this shift happens in one of three ways or maybe all three ways:
1.    Creating parallel alternative structures  - some for the church culture and others targeting the unchurched culture.  The problem and challenge here is that somewhere the churched persons need to build authentic relationships with the unchurched rather than staying in isolated activities.
2.    Creating tracks in planned programming, classes or worship experiences that are ‘in the language and practices valued and understood by each group’.  While this is a challenge it is possible.
3.    Training and commissioning a team of persons from the established church who feel called to BE and DO church with various targeted unchurched culture groups.  They learn about and walk into this ministry with the support, resourcing and equipping of the established church. They are bridgebuilders instead of creating barriers with the postmodern world.  I discuss this in great detail in my book Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age: Building Bridges Instead of Barriers.

Training Without Travel Opportunities in May, June and July:
Webinars  and teleclasses – Topics include:
o    Reaching People Under 40 While Keeping People Over 60
o    Are you a Spiritual Traveler?
o    Building Effective Deacon Ministry Teams
Register for these online at http://deaconministry.ncbaptist.org
•    Podcasts on leadership topics including: Activating the Apathetic Church; The Triangle of Ministry; Creating Parallel Structures  and more go to www.transformingsolutions.org to download free podcasts.

©Eddie Hammett, www.transformingsolutions.org

What a probing and relevant question for our fast paced lives in the 21st century!  What a threat and challenge to our definition of ‘faithfulness’, ‘membership’, ‘leadership’ and ‘church’!  John Rogers, pastor of Asheboro FBC posed this question recently to his leadership team and church staff.  I commend his insight, foresight and courage. It’s causing me to consider it as well.  I invite you to consider, pray about and dialogue about this question.  May I invite you to consider….
•    How many church programs are in place in your church and have experienced little or no change in 5 years? 10 years?
•    What evidence is there in these programs that what they are about and actually doing is moving your church forward in accomplishing the Great Commission and the Great Commandment?
•    What percentage of your active membership is in the active leadership circle of these programs?
•    How often do families in your membership have opportunities to come to church together and be engaged in programming and worship together?
•    How often do families come to your church and go ‘their different ways’?
•    What ministries or programs are not happening because your leadership, budget and resources are tied up in existing programs that are not moving the church forward in her mission?
•    What ministry ideas continue to surface in word or prayer that has not received intentional planning by church leaders? What’s up with that?
•    …..

Determining How Much Church is Enough?

    How many times do you hear or say “I just can’t do anymore?” or “When are we going to stop some things that are ineffective in order to focus on what would be more effective?”  I hear many church and denominational leaders asking these and many other questions when it comes to leadership and programming in the church. 
    The New Testament church certainly did not have all of our programming, our facilities and management responsibilities, but they did have the same Great Commission as the business of the church.  How do we determine how much church is enough in this day and age?  May I encourage you to consider and dialogue about these thoughts and if you want to know more about “measuring what matters’ in this day and age you might check out my Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age book where I discuss this issue in detail.
•    When key leaders have more than two church responsibilities you may be overloading your leaders and distracting them from hearing God’s leadership
•    When there’s no ‘white space’ in your church leader’s calendar you might need to downsize programs/teams or committees or broaden your leadership base.
•    When you cannot identify or enlist deacons/elders in your spiritual leadership pool because of too much expectation or unclear expectations or not enough expectation there’s likely work to be done in focusing ministry
•    When everyone is driven by their personal passions and preferences, or their personal ‘pet projects’ more than by what God is saying to the church now there may be a need to clarify vision and establish focus and priorities for leadership, budget and programming
•    ……

Having more church than is needed is often probable …..
•    When pastor /staff have no time to pray, prepare or preach powerfully because he/she is overwhelmed by expectations of pastoral care or being involved in a wide array of programming
•    When members have no time to cultivate serious relationships with non-believers, inactives or friends and colleagues in their community who might be open to Christ
•    When community people who are not involved in church are not impacted by the church or know little if anything about the church. The church needs to move beyond the walls into the community again and be given time and encouragement to minister there
•    When the family has no time together at home to care for each other, dialogue with each other and pray with and for each other because they are involved in too much church
•    When church business meetings focus more on budgets, buildings and pastoral care needs more than vision and engaging the community for Christ
•    When church councils or leadership team’s agendas are filled with ‘programming for us’ rather than ‘intentional dialogue and plans for reaching those outside the faith and church membership
•    When prayer times are only filled with prayer requests for church members needs and the lost or hurting in the community are consistently ignored

What are three to five issues you have read here that you will pray more about, engage in dialogue with others about in the next week?  What would God have you do now?
Go to http://deaconministry.ncbaptist.org for 2008 deacon training opportunities

©Eddie Hammett www.ncbaptist.org or www.transformingsolutions.org